UC Berkeley researchers, led by Berkeley CEE Professor Luis Ceferino, are studying how people sustain injuries inside concrete buildings during large earthquakes, using data gathered from survivors of the 2023 M7.8 Kahramanmaraş earthquake in southern Türkiye. By interviewing people and mapping how they moved and what parts of the interior (walls, partitions, exit paths, etc.) contributed to harm, the team hopes to improve structural and behavioral models that predict casualties.
Their goal is two-fold: improve “soft interventions” like education and awareness (e.g. how people respond during quakes) and promote “hard interventions” such as retrofitting older non-ductile concrete buildings. Although California hasn’t recently experienced a truly catastrophic quake, the researchers believe lessons from Türkiye will help prepare for major fault ruptures in places like the San Andreas or Hayward faults, by providing more realistic predictions and helping shape policy for building safety and retrofitting priorities.
Check out the full article and interview here.